My Media Week 18/05/08

QI(The letters stand for Quite Interesting) is a quiz show, hosted by Stephen Fry. As a trivia buff I am always interested in such stuff and was pleased to discover that the Telegraph has a weekly column with “a mixture of freshly minted research, oddities, strange coincidences and happy discoveries from the depths of the QI vault.” They also have all the features collected in an archive.

Claudia Hammond presents a series on case studies that have made a significant contribution to psychological research. There are more programs to come.

When a young woman, Kitty Genovese, was brutally killed in a prolonged attack in New York in 1964, not one of 38 witnesses called for help until too late. The case led to the naming of the phenomenon known as the Bystander Effect

In 1800, 12-year-old Victor emerged from the woods of the Aveyron District, naked and behaving like an animal. It was estimated that he had been living wild since the age of about four. Doctor Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard devised a revolutionary programme of training for the boy, which met with partial success.

The always provacative Nick Cohen has a piece about Brecht. Personally I think you should judge an artist by their work. Equally, I have very little interest in what political opinions actors hold. Just because they can learn a few lines does not them give them any special right to have their views taken seriously.